Is God Perfect?

[ThisYouWillDo]

To be honest, I got lost in this thread many postings back, and I started it! In fact, that just about marks the point I got lost - lol.

In this debate we should start out by accepting that God exists, if even if we don't believe it, at least until the only logical argument left is that he cannot. (I realise that Tom will say something like, all arguments ultimately prove his non-existence ... but please be patient.)

As I see it, the weight of argument here was that it is logically impossible for God to be perfect, and the consensus also seemed to be that God was either evil or not omniscient (he is unable to know what he has determined to be unknowable). Either way, it was wrong of him to "test" mankind if he knew in advance we would fail - if that's what he did, or it was wanton of him to play dice with our fate, knowing us to be imperfect creations.

wmrs describes a new religion with the same God. How has Jehova been reformed?

[TomOfSweden]

In this debate we should start out by accepting that God exists, if even if we don't believe it, at least until the only logical argument left is that he cannot. (I realise that Tom will say something like, all arguments ultimately prove his non-existence ... but please be patient.)

I have no problems discussing hypothetical theories. The Christian theory of God is in philosophy known as the "Unmoved Mover" theory. It was thoroughly explored long before Christianity was invented. So I don't think there's a conflict between exploring a specific facet of a God theory and being atheist. My end goal isn't to attack religion, but to kill off logical dead ends. So we can spend our time exploring/debating paths which hypothetically can lead somewhere. Dead ends are just a waste of time for everybody. Religious and secular alike.

If we accept that the Bible is not a finished product, but simply an attempt to write down how far we'd come so far in the exploration of God ca AD 350. If we do, there are solutions.

For example, if I'd be Christian, a solution to the theodicy paradox I might use is to reject good and evil as concepts. Reject that evil is a motivator for humans. And see humanity as solely motivated by fulfilling base human needs. And then see the labels of good and evil, as a method of grouping behaviour into ranks depending on how helpful it can be to society at large. If we have this interpretation then God is freed from what humans label as good and evil. But it of course means that God is neither good nor evil.

But if we cling to the Bible as free from fault there are no solutions as the one I described. Then the Christian theory of God is just plain broken/incomplete with irreconcilable problems. Hence the Christian paradoxes. Another word for it is false faith. And this is by logical necessity. You could go the other way and reject logic. But I doubt that is much of solution in the long run.